The Buckley Institute at Yale University presents
Rob Henderson ’18, founding faculty fellow at UATX, columnist at The Free Press, and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe:
“Luxury Beliefs Are Status Symbols.”
Henderson recently published his first book, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class. He writes about human nature, psychology, social class, TV shows, movies, political and social divisions, and more.
He is perhaps most known for pioneering the concept of “luxury beliefs,” a term he coined to describe a new way of understanding the American status system.
Henderson grew up in foster homes in California. After working as a busboy, a dishwasher, and supermarket bagger, he joined the Air Force at the age of 17. Most of his enlistment was spent abroad, stationed in Europe and deployed in the Middle East.
Once described as “self-made” by The New York Times, Henderson then obtained a B.S. in Psychology from Yale (thanks to the G.I. Bill) and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Cambridge (St. Catharine’s College), where he studied as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Henderson is a founding faculty fellow at UATX and a columnist at The Free Press, and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, among other outlets. He has also appeared on several podcasts including Honestly with Bari Weiss, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, and Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson.